C. S. Forester

Biography

C. S. Forester (1899–1966), born Cecil Louis Troughton Smith, was an English novelist best known for the Horatio Hornblower series of naval adventure novels set during the Napoleonic Wars. Born in Cairo and raised in London, he began writing in his twenties and achieved early success with Payment Deferred (1926) and Brown on Resolution (1929). The Hornblower series, beginning with The Happy Return (1937), became enormously popular and influenced writers including Patrick O’Brian. Forester also wrote The African Queen (1935), adapted into a classic film starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn. He spent his later years in California.